"blind" DIY mattress purchase

[phoenix]

Hi canadian,

One salesperson explained that since latex beds (and Marshalls coil beds) are higher quality and more expensive they consider them “high-end” and don’t bother to stock them except in the larger metropolitan centres.

Latex is one of the oldest materials in the industry and has been used for many decades (long before polyfoam and memory foam were even invented) but it’s much more difficult for a manufacturer to claim it as a “proprietary” material that is unique to their mattresses so the larger manufacturers that rely more on advertising that tries to differentiate their mattresses by using their own unique trade names or marketing terms for their materials rather than disclosing the actual type of material (so that consumers can’t make meaningful comparisons based on the materials inside the mattress) don’t use it as much as the smaller manufacturers that are more focused on making higher quality and better value mattresses and building their business with word of mouth and their local reputation. There are many of these smaller manufacturers across the country that make latex or latex hybrid mattresses in both smaller and larger communities but they aren’t as commonly available in the mainstream industry and in some communities that are dominated by major brands and larger chain stores they are much more difficult to find.

We did try to locate www.tmasc.ca/ but to our understanding they closed their Regina location a couple of years ago. We have considered one of their Sleepteks, to order online but of course we still wouldn’t be able to try one out. The Better Good, in Saskatoon, also carries Sleeptek but with a toddler, an infant that hates car rides and icy roads (and little sleep and a lot of back pain) it’s just not in our “value equation” right now to do a road trip, even for testing. In other words, we’re willing to make a costly mistake this time around (though of course we’re hoping to avoid that). Unfortunately, the www.sleepersmattress.com/ location in Regina has closed, as well (I believe to focus more on wholesale). They are still operating out of Saskatoon, but again, we just don’t have it in us right now to make that trip.

TMASC opened an affiliate store in Regina in May, 2013 but they changed it to a distribution hub last summer so they no longer have a showroom there so I removed them from the list. I also added the Better Good to the list since as you mentioned they they sell high quality latex mattresses made by SleepTek from their location in Saskatoon. Thanks for the heads up about both of these and for helping to keep the forum lists up to date … I appreciate it

Incidentally, I’m not sure if others have experienced this, but when initially asking salespeople if they can provide the specs we would need to identify the construction and materials in any of their mattresses (ie. not just the spec sheets from the manufacturer) we did get some of those “eyes glaze over” reactions but also, we encountered some very defensive and even hostile reactions.

Unfortunately this is more the norm than the exception. As sad as it may be … most of the people who have spent an hour or two on this site will know more meaningful information about mattresses and the materials inside them than most of the salespeople in the mainstream industry. Most of them are only trained in the sales and marketing techniques about how to sell a mattress rather than the information that will help them educate their customers about the materials in their mattresses and some of these salespeople are often very uncomfortable when they are dealing with consumers who know more than they do or when their “marketing tactics” based on information that is often incomplete or misleading don’t work as well. In some cases they can even resort to belittling their customers or making comments like “only an engineer needs to know that” or “nobody ever asks that” or similar comments rather than acknowledging that they aren’t able to provide even the most basic information about the quality of the materials inside the mattresses they sell and looking like much less of an “expert” to their customers.

One thing I’m wondering, is it possible to test HD polyfoam beds with known construction, densities, etc. and then “translate” that into types/ILDs of latex in order to construct a similar support/PPP suitable end-product? Or is that just like apples and oranges?

Unfortunately is would be too much of an “apples to oranges” comparison to make meaningful comparisons between them. Latex and polyfoam are very different materials with different properties and the specs for one don’t “translate” into equivalent specs for the other one. There are many “specs” that contribute to how a material feels and even ILD is tested differently for each one (see post #2 here) so even the same ILD in each material may not be the same softness/firmness.

In addition to this … there are many different types and blends of latex and each one has its own unique set of properties and specs. There is more about the different types and blends of latex in post #6 here.

Overall … I would tend to avoid trying to design a mattress based on just a few specs that are only part of a bigger picture (such as only ILD or layer thickness) because it can lead to some outcomes that can be very surprising when you actually sleep on it. Even the most knowledgeable mattress designers that have decades of experience on many types or materials and mattress designs are often surprised at the difference between what a mattress was “supposed” to feel like based on specs and how it actually feels when they actually test it in “real life”.

Phoenix